When James Vincent McMorrow performs, he squashes himself up behind a keyboard, feet apart and knees together, looking a little like a collapsed laundry rack. The 30-year-old's right hand shakes from the beginning of a song to its end. You give up drink, as the Dubliner did two years ago, and "all of a sudden the nerves come back."
"I was never nervous before: there's an instrument, pick it up, play it; if I make a mistake, who cares? I wasn't always aware of the importance of this job. I'm aware of it now, I appreciate it, I'm here, I've got one opportunity . . . I sound like f-cking Eminem. But it's true. You get one chance to make an impression and coasting through is a disservice."
McMorrow releases his second album, "Post Tropical," on Jan. 13. Forgive the hasty praise, a week before the reviews are due and the out-of-10s confirmed, but I think it's stunning: plump synths under McMorrow's gliding, grainy vocal; the lyrics tight and worked-at. His first album, 2011's "Early in the Morning," was tagged by many as folk, or nu-folk — "because I have a beard," McMorrow guesses. Perhaps to confound all this, the tracks on his follow-up are denser, no acoustic guitars audible, everything brazenly laptop-meddled. There's a flavor of James Blake and second-album Bon Iver.